The End of the Road
by Virodeil
Summary: For ALEC August 2010. The voyage of the Ring Bearers to the Undying Lands is not coloured by hope. Or at least it is so for a certain Half-Elf; and, to an extent, a golden-haired lady.


Author: AiedailWing

Title: The End of the Road

Rating: PG

Warnings: unproveread, gloominess, seeming OOC-ness

Summary: The voyage of the Ring Bearers to the Undying Lands is not coloured by hope. Or at least it is so for a certain Half-Elf; and, to an extent, a golden-haired lady.

The ship rocked gently, cradled by the calm waves. Elrond stood at its railing, gazing out towards the quay where Círdan and several of his people, the four Halflings from the Fellowship of the Ring, and Mithrandir were gathering. The wind caressed his face and brushed his braided hair as if trying to give him comfort.

But what comfort could he have? He was leaving behind his beloved daughter, who had chosen mortality and her Secondborn spouse over her father. He was leaving his twin sons while they had not chosen what fate they wished to tie themselves to. And he was leaving a place he knew well, a part of his birthland, to an unknown sanctuary he had only heard from the lips of bards and poets. He wished Galadriel had elaborated further about the Undying Lands, so he could claim a little bit of comfort from that knowledge; but no, she had to be either bland or criptic, always.

And she was standing beside him now, smiling knowingly, somehow amused. He tried to ignore her in favour of wallowing in the emptiness he was feeling. He knew, he was behaving childishly, not befitting his age and rank; but he could not help it.

Because, if he allowed himself to let go of this whimsical thinking, memories gathered through three ages would assault him, and he might break down from the pressure.

Mithrandir was saying farewell to the Halflings and Círdan now, and then he ushered Frodo across the gangplank. It was nearly time to go. Elrond gripped the railing bar tighter. His chest, which had been feeling like an empty hole, now throbbed with unfulfilled yearning. He was leaving now, leaving this land forever. It was like trying to grasp at something just beyond his reach…

He could not turn his back to the Undying Lands and walk back across the gangplank to the world he knew. Celebrian was waiting for him—

Were his father and mother waiting for him also, far away there across the Great Sea? Was this how his father had felt upon departing the Havens of Sirion? Was this how his mother had felt when she had leapt over the cliff to save the silmaril?

Mithrandir had reached the deck, and Frodo was now standing at Galadriel's side, lifting the vial of light she had given him aloft. The gangplank was lifted, and so did the mooring. Sails were unfurled, and oars were lowered to the brine to help propel the ship out to the open sea. – The white-knuckled hands gripping the railing gave a small spasm. They were leaving. He was leaving.

Finally.

Finally he was leaving, after witnessing three people dearest to him leave in similar ships and to similar destinations. Finally he was leaving, as he had wished in all three times. But why was there no sense of contentment, of satisfaction, in this achievement?

Frodo, tears marring his face, retreated from the deck when land was no longer visible. Mithrandir lingered awhile, but then he, too, went away in search of another place – another thing to occupy his time. Soon there were only Elrond and Galadriel left standing on the side of the ship facing Middle-earth, and in all that time no word escaped their lips or minds.

Elrond had never expected this experience to be so… cold, so hollow. There was nothing to distract him but mirky waves under the evening sky. And those waves, that span of water, reminded him that Middle-earth – his home, his sons, his daughter – was now beyond his reach.

He was gambling for that chance for Celebrian, for his father, for his mother… perhaps also for Ereinion. And this fact also told him that Elros was similarly beyond his reach, however much he would love to see his brother again.

He had been very small when his father had sailed away, never to return. He could not picture the face of Eärendil very well, then, but he remembered a great sense of loss greater than during the other farewells before the Mariner's other voyages. He had only seen Eärendil's ship during the War of Wrath, but that worked well in upping the yearning he had been nursing in his heart.

And then, decades later, his brother Elros departed for the new haven for the Secondborn, himself a Man. That elder twin of his shared his bittersweet feeling, and the same sense of loss. But it had been very hard to let Elros go even so. Elrond had wished he could somehow put the ship carrying his brother away on an invisible anchor so that Elros would not leave him alone. It had been a fierce, painful, somewhat insane experience for him, one that nobody knew ever existed in his life. (Of course, Elrond, the cool-headed young herald of the Noldorin High King Gil-galad, must not have such feeling…)

And in the middle of his seventeenth long year of marriage to Celebrian, he had had to see his wife off in a ship similar to this, broken and barely alive. The questions of "What if" had circulated in his mind like a vicious vortex, drawing him in and tearing him up. He could only stand silently on the edge of the quay then, powerless to reach for her and helpless to comfort their children.

Three times. Three times had the sea taken his loved ones away from him. He should despise it, perhaps, or rejoice in the notion that now he was the one being taken away, finally. – But what he felt now was… nothing. He had expected to feel a mix of those three farewells. He had braced himself for it…

A hand rested atop his own. A steady gaze bored into the side of his head. Elrond turned away from the undulating water, and stared right into Galadriel's eyes. There was a deep sadness and irony in those sharp blue eyes, and for a moment the Half-Elf could only ponder at those emotions uncomprehendingly.

"Valinor… is a good but bland place, young one," the golden-haired lady whispered, smiling a bittersweet smile.

Elrond's eyes widened a fraction, and recognition flashed in them. "You are coming back to your beginning, as if you have done nothing in the span of time you spent away from it," he murmured, giving her a small rueful smile. "I am sorry for wallowing in misery, Teacher."

"But you are not going to stop," Galadriel said, acknowledging the nickname used by Elrond two ages ago with a nod and a melancholy gaze.

"No, I am not going to stop now," Elrond conceded, giving his former mentor a wan look for her discerning acuity. "I cannot do it otherwise. Those memories are now the only thing I have, here in the between time before the real end."

Frodo wobbled out of the cabin he shared with Bilbo. The two Firstborn looked away as if nothing had happened. But Galadriel's hand lingered for a moment on Elrond's squeezing it, telling him that she was always there to share the burdens with him – to lighten them up. And he was grateful just for that.


End file.
